In this two-part essay, the ultimate part of our ‘Hikes with Nietzsche’ series (link) for the time being, staff writer Henry Holland retraces summer rambles around Glasgow’s Southside, the home of Scotland’s most concentrated Muslim population. In this first instalment, Holland introduces the research on Nietzsche’s engagement with Islam and his reception within the Islamic world. He recounts how stumbling upon a lecture by Timothy Winter on the French theoretician and artist Pierre Klossowski and his encounter with the faith of Muhammed made him curious about this subject in the first place. We then launch into a travel diary that leads our writer to the heart of one of the present-day’s most debated topics, the role that Islam plays in modern European societies.

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On the 125th anniversary of Nietzsche's death on August 25, we spoke with two of the most internationally recognized Nietzsche experts, Andreas Urs Sommer and Werner Stegmaier. While the conversation with Sommer (link) focused primarily on Nietzsche's life, we spoke with the latter about his thinking, its topicality and Stegmaier's own “philosophy of orientation.” What are Nietzsche's central insights? And how do they help us to find our way in the present time? What does his concept of “nihilism” mean? And what are the political implications of his philosophy?

It is well known that Nietzsche's history of influence has been read and absorbed across all political camps. But what about our present tense? Paul Stephan examines the writings of two authors who are about the same age as himself, in their mid/late 30s, and whose perspectives on Nietzsche could hardly be more different: While French journalist and YouTuber Julien Rochedy declares Nietzsche a pioneer of a right-wing cultural struggle, the German philosopher and political scientist Karsten Schubert attacks him for a left-wing identity politics. Both positions do not really convince our authors; rather, they are entirely within the framework of the prevailing simulation of politics as a cultural struggle, which would need to be countered by focusing on the really pressing life problems of contemporary humanity.

Nietzsche did not just influence popular culture. He himself was part of a contemporary popular culture and was significantly influenced by it. As a spa tourist, he chased after the trendy health resorts, studied popular magazines and non-fiction books as a popular reader, ate his way through various (self-prescribed) diets as a diet freak and used modern technologies from telegrams to Malling-Hansen's writing ball. In the following article, Swiss Nietzsche researcher Tobias Brücker summarizes some influences from contemporary dietetics in order to exemplify how Nietzsche's life and thinking were shaped by popular cultural factors.